Pudding for Gathering

I was invited to a house warming at a Zam's new condo. I have been really busy with orders last week so I only had time to bake on Saturday morning, just before the gathering. Since the bread pudding had been an all time favorite, and this was the quickest to make (and most importantly I can bring it over even after it came straight out from the oven).

The bread pudding is made with croissant, the usual pudding mix but with additional melted white chocolate to give a richer texture. This will definitely be very indulging if you are up to some rich, creamy and buttery kind of bread pudding.

Best eaten with a good scope of vanilla ice cream. If I've had more time, I would have made some vanilla sauce (white chocolate vanilla sauce most probably) to go with the pudding. And if it's for non Muslim friends, some brandy in the vanilla sauce will be so perfect!

Anyways, I think the gymfreaks miss the chocolate cake. So sorry dears, didn't have the time lately. Will make more effort and bring a cake for the next gathering.

I had a great time and I love the breeze which I think maybe you will only get at place at the 18th floor like Zam's. Enjoyed the food a lot too and it's really warm seeing old friends again. And yeah, I think I haven't met you guys for like a year :p

Bread Pudding for Pool Party

After the last farewell party at SC and Bernsy's, I thought perhaps I'll make the chocolate cake or chocolate cupcakes for the second farewell party - which we just had last night! But due to limited time (had to prepare cake for my last cake decoration class) I had to choose a less time consuming option. My all time favorite (other than the brownies) would be the bread pudding which doesn't take too much time to prepare. The only challenge normally will be getting the croissants to make the pudding. Croissants are normally popular item and will be sold off in the bakery very soon, so must get to bakery early in order to grab some.

I was also up to trying out my new "toy". Actually it's not that new, MC bought this for me when she came back. In fact, I've used the ramekins that came with it and I've only not used the torch before.

Wanted to use it to caramelize the brown sugar on top of the pudding.

Okay lah, not too bad, but I must sieve the brown sugar the next time to get a more even colour on the surface. Actually, I think it's actually better still, using the oven.

Finally the vanilla sauce, with a little bit of brandy.

White Chocolate Bread Pudding

The post is lacking something sweet. Was not in the right mood to post up the baking stuff last week.

Uncle was not feeling well last week and he had problem biting his food. So my auntie had requested for this pudding mainly to indulge my uncle. They had always like this pudding, very rich and definitely something you will think of when you are looking for a sweet indulgence. It's best eaten with vanilla ice cream or vanilla sauce. I'll normally make a white chocolate vanilla sauce but I didn't make the sauce with this because I made the pudding at 10pm at night and was really sleepy by the time I took the pudding out from the oven.

Good thing was, my cousin bro could just come pick it right when it's baked since they are now staying down the street. The unfortunate incident was I burnt my arm in the oven. There is still a very visible burn mark on my arm. :(

Pudding made of croissants, loads of raisins and a white chocolate custard sauce.

Trifle

Made this last weekend but the pictures I took were very unclear, so tried to retake some pictures before posting.

I actually love trifle a lot. I used to store trifles in my fridge all year round when I was studying in UK. My favorite were from Marks & Spencer, the strawberry or mix fruit trifles. They were like about 1.99 pounds per tub of 500g (about RM8 at that time), quite affordable right?

So far I've only tried making trifles from "convenient" pack. Those with ready mix powder for the jelly, custard and cream, complete with sponge fingers. Only finally tried a "DYI" one because I had a lot of whipping cream which will turn bad soon if I don't use, and I don't want to waste them. Chose a "semi" homemade recipe. (Semi because I didn't make the custard from scratch, used custard powder.)

The result... the whipping cream was fantastic, ok, not whipping cream, it's whip topping - slightly sweeten, lighter, fluffier, easier to whip and very stable (won't turn watery easily). The custard was too watery, wonder if it's because the custard powder sold in UK (English recipe) is different from the one I bought?

These were scooped out from the bigger bowl

Definitely MUST use crystal jelly... I forgot to buy jelly powder so I had to stopped by at the little small town grocery shop near my house, and they only have this Japanese jelly (which is now MC's new found favorite) which is too arrr... "chewy", more rubbery texture which is not suitable for trifles.

The jam roll (Swiss roll) was ok, perhaps one with more jam will be tastier. I feel that more fruits will be better, but since I like making these into small ramekins (because it gives the feel good factor of eating the "whole" tub all by myself. Scooping from a big bowl will cause the remaining trifle to becoming "watery"), I would need to place the fruits within the jelly otherwise the trifle might just overflow.

Made a bigger bowl also

Definitely "neater" looking in small ramekins

I will also experiment the chocolate mousse trifle the next round. Lets have a series of trifles!

White Chocolate Bread Pudding

White chocolate bread and butter pudding. Made from croissants with loads of raisins. Loads of raisins only by my definition, my auntie goes for extreme raisins.

Was invited to Meen's (ex-colleague) open house. Since most of my ex-colleagues were going to be there, and since they were the confirmed gang of the bread pudding supporters - who were also the original guinea pigs of this item - I made this on Friday night, so I could bring this to the open house... was really sleepy by the time I took the pudding out from the oven. It took me more time because I also made some mini pudding pots.

Pudding pots in glass ramekins

Pudding in foil containers for convenience as gift-aways

Since I was so sleepy, I left the caramelizing to this morning - glazed with apricot jam and caramelized icing sugar top for a crispier finish.

Will be making the vanilla sauce tomorrow - white chocolate vanilla sauce with liquor since I couldn't add liquor to the bread pudding itself.

Durian Pudding - Trial and Error

Had quite a lot of durian in proportion to the tart shell from my durian tart making last weekend. So I've decided to attempt the durian pudding (also the lazy option, as opposed to say, durian cake).

I used my existing mango pudding recipe. One problem - the recipe said one mango... hmmm... 1 mango = ?? durian?

So trial and error lah... the result was pudding bit too hard. Perhaps it's very subjective, depends how you would like your pudding to be. TLA and I just went to Ah Yat Abalone for Dim Sum the other day and the mango pudding over there were superb! Soft and creamy... so benchmarking against that, my durian pudding is really very far off. I've jotted down to reduce the amount of gelatin should I make this again.

Luckily TLA tasted a tub right after it's set, because when we had it for our dessert after dinner the following night, the pudding had turned sour. We'd thrown them all away.

Also remembering I'd actually given S-Buddy some pudding to try as well besides the durian tarts. So sms-ed to check how he'd like the tart and warn him that the pudding had potentially turned bad.

His reply on the review was: "yummy".

And he tried the pudding too, the above "yummy" was multi-purposed acting as his comments towards the pudding too. No report of his pudding getting sour so far. Why ah did my pudding turned sour? MasterChef and BIL had a few theory: 1) I kept pudding in fridge when it was not cool down enough; 2) Other ingredient had turned bad (because my durian cream made from the same durian was still alright) 3) Sudden change of temperature in fridge when I move them around... hmmm... I don't think so lah... so I've still not figure out why...

Any advice?

Dark Chocolate Mousse

I needed something for my boss... Since I needed to bake the birthday cake, AND I really need to get on with Harry Potter (and I need to make this quick so I can go back to the book, I'm only at page 127, extremely behind everyone else), so, I decided the only thing I can manage would be the chocolate mousse which doesn't require baking.

In short, a very healthy (completely sugar free, except for those from the dark chocolate, and it's 70% dark chocolate, how much sugar can there be?) and high in "spirit" little indulgence.

Limited edition though...

Decorated with brandy cream and mint stick (which I need to replenish, all gone already.)